CV Science

Ana Maria Gomez Pharmacist, PhD, HDR

Course and current status

2015- : Director of UMR-S 1180: "Signaling and Cardiovascular Pathophysiology". Inserm, Université Paris-Saclay.

2011-2014: "Directeur de Recherche" INSERM. Head of Inserm team: "Calcium Signaling and Cardiac physiopathology", at U-769 Inserm Unit

From 2008: Tenure position as Directeur de Recherche at INSERM.

1998-2008: Tenure position as Chargée de Recherche at CNRS.

1995-1997: Post-doctoral stage at Univesrity of Maryland Biotechnology Institute at Baltimore, USA. Research on "Calcium sparks in normal and hypertrophied hearts".

1991-1994: Ph.D. at Instituto de Farmacología y Toxicología, CSIC-Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, on "Heterogeneity of ionic currents in the normal and hypertrophied rat cardiac ventricle".

Scientific summary

Project subject

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death in developed countries. Last stage of cardiac pathologies, heart failure is major cause of morbidity and mortality. Despite therapeutic improve, HF patient’s prognostic is very poor, and more than 50% dye suddenly as consequence of ventricular arrhythmia. This fact is the consequence of misunderstanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible of contractile dysfunction and arrhythmogenesis. It is thus imperative to elucidate the pathological mechanisms in order to find new therapeutic targets and develop efficient pharmacology.

In order to better understand heart failure syndrome, we develop a project program focused in analyzing Ca²⁺ handling involvement in the genesis of heart failure and arrhythmia. In this sense, in addition of activating cardiac contraction, Ca²⁺ is recently emerging as a key factor in transcription regulation (excitation-transcription coupling, ETC) and in arrhythmia development. Our project aims to elucidate the adaptive and maladaptive mechanisms involved in cardiac hypertrophy and arrhythmia. In the last years, my work have been focusing in the involvement of the calcium release chanel (RyR2) in pacemaker acttivity and ventricular arrhythmias, including the inherited diseas cathecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT).

Expertise

Dr. Gómez is an internationally-recognized expert in excitation-contraction coupling and cardiac calcium signaling with 122 publications, more than 9000 citations, h index of 50, and more than 100 invitations to give talks in international conferences. The long-term goal of Dr. Gomez’ laboratory is to elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control the heart beat in normal and pathological settings, focusing in the calcium release channel, the ryanodine receptor, and elucidating its alterations involved in the contractile dysfunction in heart failure, but also in the arrhythmia propensity that may lead to sudden death. Both in "acquired” diseases, as heart failure, and in genetic diseases, such as catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT). In the latter, she was also the first to record Ca²⁺ sparks in a model of CPVT both in ventricular cells and in pacemaker cells finding a mechanism involved in bradycardia in these patients.

Dr. Gómez is past-president of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Working Group of Cardiac and Cellular Electrophysiology (WGCCE). She has served in other scientific societies:  elected member of the Biophysical Society council (2006-09) and of the ESC WGCCE nucleus (from 2014, being 2020-22 chair), chair of the Gordon Research Conference “Muscle: excitation-contraction coupling” (2019-23). She was elected member of the International Society for Heart Research (ISHR) international council (2022-28), of the European Heart Rhythm Association board (2022-24) and of the European council for Basic Cardiovascular Science (2022-24).

Dr. Gómez serves as associated Editor of Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (from 2020) and of Europace (from 2023), and belong to several editorial boards including Cardiovascular Research, Journal of General Physiology, Cell Calcium, Physiological Reviews, Journal of cardiovascular aging. She is Fellow of the ESC (from 2010) and of the ISHR (from 2019).

In 2024 Dr. Gómez has been awarded the ISHR distinguished president lecture.